the hands in stocks before or behind the back, suspending the body by the thumbs and fingers, tying the hands to a bar under the knees, so as to bend the body double, and chaining by the neck close to a stone, are resorted to when the prisoner is contumacious. One magistrate is accused in the Gazette of having fastened up two criminals to boards by nails driven through their palms; one of them tore his hands loose, and was nailed up again, which caused his death; using beds of iron, boiling water, red hot spikes, and cutting the tendon Achilles, are also charged against him, but the emperor exonerated him on account of the atrocious character of the criminals. Compelling them to kneel upon pounded glass, sand, and salt mixed together, until the knees become excoriated, or simply kneeling upon chains, is a lighter mode of the same infliction. Mr. Milne mentions seeing a wretch undergoing this torture, his hands tied behind his back to a stake held in its position by two policemen; if he swerved to relieve the agony of his position, a blow on his head compelled him to resume it. The agonies of the poor creature were evident from his quivering lips, his pallid and senseless countenance, and his tremulous voice imploring relief, which was refused with a cold mocking command, "Suffer or confess."

Flogging is one of the five authorized punishments, but it is used more than almost any other means to elicit confession; the bamboo, rattan, cudgel, and whip, are all employed. When death ensues from these tortures, the magistrate reports that the criminal died of sickness, or hushes it up by bribing his friends, few of whom are ever allowed access within the walls of the prison to see and comfort the sufferers. From the manner in which such a result is spoken of, it may be inferred that immediate death does not often take place from torture. A magistrate in Sz'chuen being abused by a man in court, who also struck the attendants, ordered him to be put into a coffin which happened to be near, when suffocation ensued; he was in consequence dismissed the service, punished one hundred blows, and transported three years. One check on outrageous torture is the fear that the report of their cruelty will come to the ears of their superiors, who are usually ready to avail of any mal-administration to get an officer removed, in order to fill the post with their own friends. In this case, as in other parts of Chinese government, the dread of one evil prevents the commission of another,

FIVE LEGAL PUNISHMENTS.

411

The five kinds of punishment mentioned in the Code, are, from ten to fifty blows with the lesser bamboo, from fifty to one hundred with the greater, transportation, perpetual banishment, and death, each of them modified in various ways. The small bamboo weighs about 2 lbs., the larger 23 lbs. Public exposure in the kia, or cangue, is considered rather a kind of censure or reprimand than a punishment, and carries no disgrace with it, nor comparatively much bodily suffering, if the person be fed and screened from the sun. The frame weighs between twenty and thirty pounds, and is so made as to rest upon the shoulders, without chafing the neck, but so broad as to prevent the person feeding himself. The name, residence, and offence of the delinquent are written upon it, for the information of every passer by,

Brand

and a policeman is stationed over him to prevent escape. ing is applied to deserters and banished persons. Imprisonment and fines are not regarded as legal punishments, but rather correctives; and flogging, as Le Comte says, "is never wanting,

there being no condemnation in China without this previous dis position, so that it is unnecessary to mention it in their condemnation; this being always understood to be their first dish." When a man is arrested, he is effectually prevented from breaking loose by putting a chain around his neck, and tying his hands. Most punishments are redeemable by the payment of money,

Xif the criminal is under fifteen, or over seventy years of

age,

and a table is given in the Code for the guidance of the magistrate in such cases. An act of grace enables a criminal condemned even to capital punishment to redeem himself, if the offence be not one of wilful malignity; but better legislation would have shown the good effects of not making the punishments So severe. It is also ordered in Section xviii, "that any offender under sentence of death for a crime not excluded from the contingent benefit of an act of grace, who shall have infirm parents or grandparents alive, over seventy years of age, and no other male child over sixteen to support them, shall be recommended to the mercy of his majesty; and if only condemned to banishment, shall receive one hundred blows and redeem himself by a fine." Many atrocious laws in the Chinese Code may be forgiven for one such exhibition of regard for the care of decrepid parents. Few governments exhibit such opposing principles of actions as the Chinese: a strange blending of cruelty to prisoners with a maudlin consideration of their condition, and a constant effort to coax the people to obedience, while exercising great oppression upon individuals, are everywhere manifest.

Banishment and slavery are punishments for minor official delinquencies, and few officers who live long in the emperor's employ, do not take an involuntary journey to Mongolia, Turkestan, or elsewhere, in the course of their lives. The fates and conduct of banished criminals are widely unlike; some doggedly serve out their time, others try to ingratiate themselves with their masters, in order to alleviate or shorten the time of service, while hundreds contrive to escape and return to their homes, though this subjects them to increased suffering and punishment. Persons banished for treason are severely dealt with if they return without leave and those convicted of crime in their place of banishment are increasingly punished; one man was sentenced to be outlawed for an offence at his place of banishment, but seeing that his aged mother had no other support than his labor, the

CORRECTION OF MINOR OFFENCES.

418

emperor ordered that a small sum should be paid for her living out of the public treasury. Whipping a man through the streets as a public example to others is frequently practised upon persons detected in robbery, assault, or some other minor offences. The man is manacled, and one policeman goes before him carrying a tablet, on which are written his name, crime, and punishment, accompanied by another holding a gong. In some cases, little sticks bearing flags are thrust through his ears as an additional punishment. The officer appointed to oversee the fulfilment of the sentence follows the executioner, who strikes the criminal with his whip as the rap on the gong denotes that the appointed number is not yet complete.

Decapitation and strangling are the legal modes of executing criminals, though Ki Kung, the governor-general of Canton, having taken several incendiaries in 1843, who were convicted of firing the city for purposes of plunder, starved them to death in the public squares of the city. The least disgraceful mode of execution is strangulation, which is performed by tying a man to a post, and tightening the cord which goes round his neck, by

a winch; the infliction is very speedy, and apparently less painful than hanging. The least crime for which death is awarded, appears to be a third and aggravated theft, and defacing the branding inflicted for former offences. Decollation is considered more disgraceful than strangling, owing to the dislike the Chinese have of dissevering the bodies which their parents gave them entire. There are two modes of decapitation, that of simple decollation being considered, again, as less disgraceful than being "cut into ten thousand pieces,” as the phrase ling chih has been rendered. The military officer who superintends the execution is attended by a guard, to keep the populace from crowding upon the limits, and prevent resistance on the part of the prisoners. The bodies are given up to the friends, except when the head is exposed in a cage where the crime was committed, as a warning. If no one is present to claim the corpse, it is buried at public expense. The criminals are generally so far exhausted with the tortures and privations they have suffered, that they make no resistance, and submit to their fate without a groan ;—much more, without a dying speech to the spectators. In ordinary cases, the executions are postponed until the autumnal assize, when the emperor revises and confirms the sentences of the provincial governors; criminals guilty of extraordinary offences, as robbery attended with murder, arson, rape, breaking into fortifications, highway robbery, and piracy, may be immediately beheaded without reference to court, and it is probable that criminals condemned for one or other of these crimes comprise the greater part of the unreferred executions in the provinces.

It is impossible to ascertain the number of persons executed in China, for the life of a condemned criminal is thought little of; in the court circular it is merely reported, that "the execution of the criminals was completed," without mentioning their crimes, residences, or names. At the autumnal revises at Peking, the number sentenced is given in the Gazettes; 935 were sentenced in 1817, of which 133 were from the province of Kwangtung; in 1826, there were 581; in 1828, the number was 789, and in the next year, 579 names were marked off, none of whose crimes it is inferrible, are included in the list of offences mentioned above. The condemnations are sent from the capital by express, and the executions take place immediately. Most of the persons condemned in a province are executed in its capital, and to hear